Globalisation of education

Question 1

What 3 forms of assessment are used to see international differences of education?

Answer 1

1) PISA = Programme (for) International Student Assessment.
2) TIMSS = Trends in International Maths and Science Study.
3) PIRLS = Progress in International Reading Literacy Study.

Question 2

How are the formations of assessment shown?

Answer 2

League tables, showing relative performance.

Question 3

Give statistic examples of PISA for the UK

Answer 3

PISA 2012;

• 26/65 countries in Maths.
• 23/65 in reading.
• 20/65 in science.

Question 4

According to Alexander (2012) what has UK’s performance on a global scale led to?

Answer 4

• a ‘PISA panic’, much like moral panics.

- Government trying to find the solution from other countries’ policies.

Question 5

Give examples of policies adopted from outside of the UK.

Answer 5

• New Labour - 2 hours a day of numeracy and literacy.
• Coalition - slimming down the national curriculum to ‘essential knowledge’.
• Coalition - raising academic entry requirements for trainee teachers from 2012; done by Finland who are world leaders in international assessment.

Question 6

What are the strengths of international comparison?

Answer 6

• Useful to see whether educational spending matches educational achievement = UK above average.
  = spending not efficient?
• Useful for benchmarking standard internationally: Oates (2013) - see what is humanly possible.
• Provides evidence for what works best and what doesn’t.

Question 7

What are the limitations of international comparison?

Answer 7

1) PISA etc. based on a very narrow conception of education that can be measured.
- Kelly (2009) - globalisation led to a view that education is primarily an economic activity.
- Children’s well-being, social cohesion etc overlooked.
- Countries that do well focused on passing there students in 2-3 subjects rather than wider education.
2) Test results do not necessarily mean that the education received is better or worse in different countries; concerns of validity and reliability too.
- Do not show wider social circumstances, educational policy unlikely to change this.
- e.g. can’t compare UK to developing countries where child soldiers are present.
- can’t compare to countries like Hong Kong or Singapore due to scale; 23,000 England schools vs 350 Singapore schools.
3) Can have damaging and wasteful effects on policy.
- jump to conclusions in policy making.